Social Audience Size as a Reference Point: Evidence from a Field Experiment

In the dynamic landscape of the digital economy, social trading platforms are experiencing rapid growth. Our study delves into the impact of changes in social audience size—measured by the number of followers—on traders’ performance and behaviors. Utilizing data from a company-led randomized field experiment conducted on a prominent cryptocurrency social trading platform, we unearth intriguing findings. Traders garnering increased social audience size exhibit tendencies to trade more frequently, utilize higher leverage, and, surprisingly, attain poorer performance. Notably, these adverse effects intensify among traders who previously excelled, suggesting a link to overconfidence. Interestingly, our research uncovers a reference point effect associated with social audience size. Removing accumulated social audience size does not alleviate the negative consequences, instead, they persist. Additionally, we observe an extra adverse effect when traders experience a reduction in the digit magnitude of follower counts, supporting our hypothesis about social audience size serving as a reference point. Our study carries significant implications for the design of social trading platforms. It serves as a crucial reminder for both traders and platform managers to carefully navigate the interplay between social audience size dynamics and trading decisions. This paper was accepted by D. J. Wu, information systems. Supplemental Material: The online appendices and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.03144 .

• 저널Management Science
• 토픽Financial Markets and Investment Strategies · Finance
• DOI10.1287/mnsc.2022.03144
• 저자Xingchen Xu, Qili Wang, Yizhi Liu, Liangfei Qiu